


My Echo, My Shadow and Me

by Bonymaloney



Series: Fighting It At Every Turn [10]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Crack, Cunnilingus, Drugged Sex, Established Relationship, F/M, Max can start a fight in an empty room by himself, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, The captains third eye is way tf open, Threesome - F/M/M, ass eating, he can have a threesome when there’s only two people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:21:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22245511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonymaloney/pseuds/Bonymaloney
Summary: Something bluish flickered at the edge of her vision, and she turned as a familiar form coalesced from the smoke beside her. He stared down at Max with a slightly condescending smile on his face. The last time she’d seen him, Max had beaten him to death in an abandoned mining town on Scylla.
Relationships: Maximillian DeSoto/selfcest, The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Series: Fighting It At Every Turn [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629799
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62





	My Echo, My Shadow and Me

Everyone in the Universe had their own little habits, vices and eccentricities that helped them to stay sane; and the crew of the Unreliable were no different. Six adults living together in a confined space still needed to be able to cry or masturbate or practice their cool combat poses in the mirror (Felix), but they also had to be able to look each other in the eyes the rest of the time. With privacy at a premium, the polite thing to do was therefore to maintain plausible deniability and a strictly incurious attitude towards closed doors. So whenever the laughing or sobbing or shouting from Max’s cabin became too much, the crew would just shrug and turn up the aetherwave until he was done enlightening himself. 

But tonight was different. The orange glow around his door and the faint spicy scent of the incense were there, but Max himself was suspiciously quiet. 

“Too quiet,” Ellie said, narrowing her eyes. “I’m just saying, Cap’n. Vicky can start a fight in an empty room by himself. I don’t trust him when he’s quiet.”

“Maybe someone should check on him,” Parvati suggested. Felix jumped to his feet, only to be forced back into his chair by Nyoka’s hand on his shoulder.

“ _Someone_ should, Captain,” the hunter said, taking a pointed sip of her drink for emphasis. 

“Fine,” Pearl grumbled, and slouched off down the corridor. Truth be told she had mixed emotions about Max’s new pastime. It wasn’t the incense - Law knew, she wasn’t above a little chemical RnR herself - so much as the fact that he made such great claims to enlightenment when, from her perspective, very little had actually changed. If Max wanted to kill somebody then she doubted if it mattered to them whether he killed them because it was in the Plan for them to die or because their lives were just an illusion anyway. They were still dead, and her crew surviving and thriving, in no small part because of his skill as a gunhand. 

Pearl would kill people because they tried to kill her and hers, or if they were in her way and didn’t stand down when she gave them fair chance. She’d made a decision and she aimed to stick to it; but she owned that decision, didn’t try and claim it was given to her by some external force, or that the people that it hurt didn’t matter. And it was hypocritical of her to be thinking less of Max for his rationalisations when she was more than happy for him to unleash his violent enthusiasm on her enemies, but there it was. 

Max did seem happier and less angry though, although it seemed to her that was because he’d one day just decided to be so. Which in a strange way, validated the stuff his mother had said to him when she scolded him during his vision. It had been weirdly nice to be called a good influence on her son, though. Pearl hadn’t much experience of that sort of thing. Back on Earth she’d had room in her life for sex, but not for people. Now there was Max, who’d disappointed his parents; and Ellie, who’s parents had disappointed her; Nyoka, who’d lost a whole different kind of family… her crew were her people now, and they all had other people, who had other people… it was like being in the centre of a big woven image, and it was actually kind of awesome. 

The revelation improved her spirits, and she decided to share it with Max, if he wasn’t too wasted. Their conversations and debates were actually firier but also more interesting by and large since the change. If only because she was now the one apt to lose her temper when they argued. 

Eager to see him now, she banged on the cabin door. 

“Max? Are you ok in there? I don’t want to disturb you, but the crew thinks I should make sure you didn’t pass out and choke...”

When there was no reply, she stepped into the room. As her eyes adjusted to the dim warm light and the smoke, she saw Max sprawling in his bunk. His head was tilted back, eyes half closed in blissful abandon, and one of his large fists was wrapped around his erection. He stroked himself, slow and luxurious, occasionally swiping his thumb across the slick head of his cock or reaching lower to cup his testicles. Little hisses of pleasure escaped his lips, and the fingers of his other hand flexed in his hair before sliding into his mouth.

Pearl was taken aback. The sight of her lover lost to pleasure at his own hands provoked a mixture of emotions - affection, insecurity, incredible horniness - that would have been difficult to process even with a clear head. But every breath she took drew more and more of the sweet heady incense into her lungs, clouding her thoughts and leaving her aware of only an aching sense of want in her groin. 

Something bluish flickered at the edge of her vision, and she turned as a familiar form coalesced from the smoke beside her. He stared down at Max with a slightly condescending smile on his face. The last time she’d seen him, Max had beaten him to death in an abandoned mining town on Scylla. 

“So… I guess you two are on better terms now?”

“I’m encouraging him to live in the moment,” Max’s idealised self explained. “Really explore his desires, rather than try to suppress them if they don't fit with his idea of the Plan… _I_ am capable of infinitely deferring my gratification, but of course, I don’t exist.”

Max’s idealised self had a calm, superior air about him, and like before it was difficult to be certain exactly where his voice was coming from - it seemed to just arrive in the air around them. His features were slightly more symmetrical than Max’s own, with less grey in his hair, and a straight nose that didn’t look as though it had been broken and then set by someone who possessed skill but no artistry. Pearl didn't like him. 

“He’s hoping you might suck his cock,” he said. “He wanted me to, at first, but he’s not flexible enough for that. He tried it once in seminary and it didn’t work then, either.”

Pearl was a little dizzy. She was aware of the Unreliable moving through space, feeling her ship diving through the gravity around Monarch in a way that wasn’t normally possible. Max was beautiful, she thought vaguely, all the more so for his frown lines and his scars. Large green eyes currently hazy with pleasure, strong dark brows. His mouth was so… his mouth…

She realised Max was speaking, but there seemed to be a lag between the way his full pink lips moved, the way they moved, the way they felt, the heat in them when he kissed her…

She shook her head. There was a mismatch between Max’s mouth and the sound of his voice, but he was talking to her. 

“I am so very happy you’re here,” he was saying. “I was lonely in my bunk, and I wanted to fully experience my desire, and now you _are_ here and it’s perfect.” He laughed a little. “The whole room is spinning… come and lay down with me, Pearl.”

“Desires are a part of you,” the other Max chimed in. “They aren’t something distinct from you, like wild rapts to be tamed. You don’t control them and they don’t control you. They simply… are.”

Pearl’s tongue felt thick, her lips tingling. The way the light and shadow played across Max’s face was distracting to the point of hypnotic; but Max’s ideal self had said something interesting, if only she could remember it. 

“I like the sound of the wild rapt,” she managed eventually. 

A lazy lopsided grin spread across Max’s face at her words. “I could bite you, if you like.” He sat up on the edge of the bunk to face her, planting his feet to either side of hers so that she was held between his powerful thighs. His hands were warm against her as he slid them up beneath her shirt. Deliciously soft and rough, the result of a combination of hard manual labour with a good skincare regime… she laughed, then gasped as she felt another pair of hands, cool and tingly, embrace her from behind and lift the garment fully up and over her head before coming to rest cupping her breasts. 

Max was planting soft kisses and trailing his fingers along the planes of her bare skin, grazing his teeth along her ribs, then catching the skin over her hipbone in a soft bite. She gasped as she felt her nipples stiffen, caught between thumb and forefingers, pinching almost but not quite to the point of pain, then brushing back and forth across the stiff peaks until she was weak at the knees. The apparition behind her felt more solid with every breath she took of the spicy-sweet smoke. His hand slid across her belly and lower, peeling her out of her trousers until they were bunched around her ankles. 

“She’s wet,” he informed Max. “She likes to see you like this. There is no grand purpose to everything you do; you don’t have to try and convince her of your truth. Just be with her.” His ice cold fingers were thick and eager inside her the way Max’s were, his palm pressing static electricity against her mound.

“Yes…” Max breathed, and braced his hands on her hips to steady her. The heat of his lips and tongue stroking firmly across her clitoris made her gasp, and the sensation combined with the sudden shock of an extra large lungful of incense suddenly had her certain she was going to faint. She grasped Max by the hair, grabbing handfuls of it to steady herself, and he groaned. His cheeks were flushed, his pupils large and dark as he gazed up at her. He was stunning. 

A vague sense of Captainly responsibility stirred at the base of her skull, struggling to make itself heard through the haze of lust and smoke. 

“Max, are you… you’ve been in here longer than I have and it’s…”

“You don’t know how often I’ve thought about this. I’ve been dreaming of it. It’s good when I’m by myself, but now I’m with you… we can touch and taste and feel _everything_.” He grasped her hands, his eyes sincere. “Let me show you, Captain.” 

Pearl kicked her boots off in response, not quite trusting herself to speak. 

“Sharing a sexual experience under the influence of hallucinogens does not make it more profound,” the idealised self remarked. They both ignored him. 

Max was strong, and he moved with unconscious predatory grace. He wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her into his bunk, breathing the scent of her hair with deep hungry gasps and pressing tender kisses to the nape of her neck. The velvety softness of his lips contrasting with the scratch of his stubble made her wild, and she bucked back against him, but he growled and used his weight to press down on top of her, caging her with his limbs so that he could kiss and bite at the tender skin overlying her shoulder blades. Her breasts pressed into the soft rough sheets, maddening friction against her sensitive nipples, and she could feel Max’s substantial erection grinding against the back of her thigh. 

He trailed kisses down her spine, then grabbed her buttocks and pulled them apart with his big strong hands. The stretch sent a spark of pleasure through her, and she arched again. Max made a husky groaning sound. She felt his hot breath, and then he began to lap at her and it was difficult to think of anything else at all. 

His tongue was hot and wet, pleasuring her in a way that felt dirty and almost unbearably intimate. Pearl was deeply aware of the beads of sweat on her skin, the cold shudders shooting up her spine, the way the lights in the cabin dimmed and brightened in time with her heartbeat. Max was moaning, the vibrations tingling deliciously against her skin. He shifted position slightly to allow him to push his finger into her. It burned inside her, impossibly big and full, and then he began to tease her stretched rim with his tongue and she laughed and shrieked into his pillow. 

The sex and the incense had disinhibited her completely, and when Max released her her only thought was to slide one hand down to where she was practically rutting against the mattress. Panting and grinding against her own palm, she was vaguely aware of cool hands and lips, kissing her and soothing her as Max slicked his cock with a handful of something he’d grabbed from a tube beneath his bed. 

He pushed her onto her side and lay behind her, draped her leg over his. His movements were sure and instinctive, his hands powerful. There was hot blunt pressure against her asshole, and her stomach flipped with sudden anxiety. She caught her breath and moaned. 

“Sshhh…” Max breathed in her ear. He was gentle but relentless and suddenly, she felt herself yield, an overwhelming, tearing sensation that sent a shock of something more primal than pleasure through her even as her body tried frantically to reject it. 

“Fuck!” she screamed, and gripped the mattress beneath her so hard her fingers hurt. Max was groaning and gasping helplessly, for all the world as if he was the one being skewered alive, she thought irritably. But she had had him in her position before, and she remembered the ecstasy it brought him and the thrilling sense of power it gave her. A fierce pleasure began to build within her. Her skin was tingly, her face and chest flushed unbearably hot. She was so _full_. 

“Fuck, you’re tight,” Max moaned. “Hot and tight and fucking _gorgeous_ … let me move, Pearl, Captain, please let me move. Let me feel you, let me fuck you… oh Law, I can’t tell where I end and you begin...”

Pearl could feel her pulse pounding in her clitoris and her nipples, and she was suddenly desperate for him. She reached up and behind her, twined her fingers in the hair at the base of his skull, and pulled. 

“ _YES!_ ” Max shouted joyful and wild, and jerked his hips forward. Pearl’s vision dissolved in sparks of pleasure. Her back was pressed up against his chest, their skin stuck together with sweat, and she clung to his strong arm around her waist as he thrust into her, grunting softly in her ear. His bunk felt like a raft or an island, drifting through the void surrounded by floating lights. Every inch of her skin, every nerve ending was on fire, and he traced glowing patterns across her body with his fingertips, trailing lower until he pushed them into her cunt and she shuddered with the overwhelming sensation of being fucked by his fingers and his fat hard cock together. 

“Take it like a good boy, Maximillian,” she heard the other, cooler voice drawl, and over her shoulder she saw Max’s idealised self-image mounting him, kissing him deep and open-mouthed. Both of them had their eyes closed, with the deep frown on their faces that Max always displayed when he was concentrating on something. 

_One of us really has issues_ , she thought to herself, and then Max pulled his fingers out of her cunt and scraped his blunt nails across her clit, and she shrieked. Max held her in his arms as she shuddered and wailed through her orgasm, clenching around him and wringing hoarse groans and filthy praise from his lips.

Afterwards, they lay entangled and breathless, staring up at the ceiling of the bunk in a mutual daze. Pearl was sore and she felt very sticky, but also conscious of a bone deep happiness. It was postcoital bliss and the satisfaction of a really good workout all rolled into one, and it was more than worth a few days spent walking funny. 

Eventually, Max rolled and grabbed a bottle of plain ‘n pure water from beneath his bunk. She sipped gratefully, admired the way his throat moved as he swallowed. Droplets of sweat glistened on his chest, caught by the salt-and-pepper hairs scattered across it. She’d dug her fingers in hard enough to break skin when she came, and his thigh was patterned with little bloody crescent moons. 

“What do we do now,” she said. 

“It seems to have burned itself out,” Max replied. “Usually I wait until I know the top of my head isn’t going to fall off, and then I head to the galley. I tend to find myself extremely hungry.”

“Huh.” She stretched, enjoying the sensations as the final tendrils of incense worked their way out of her system. Max’s body was deliciously warm, and he smelled masculine and good. She lay in his arms, listening to his heartbeat and watching the smoke gradually dissipating from the small cabin. “So where’s your friend? Your, uh, yourself? Your self.”

“Oh, he doesn’t exist. OSI vicars are trained in confessional listening and spiritual guidance; and I never was much of a vicar. But he is an ideal vicar, so I bring him back sometimes to help me work through things.”

Pearl shrugged. It almost made sense.

“I’m not sure I like him,” she admitted. 

“Me neither.” Max smiled. 

“Good in bed though.”

“Oh yes.”


End file.
